Ji-Seon Kim is Professor of Electronic Materials in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. She joined Oxford after serving as Professor of Solid State Physics in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. Her research primarily focuses on sustainable molecular semiconductors, expanding into new classes of electronic materials such as mixed electronic/ionic conductors and organic/inorganic hybrids. Molecular semiconductors—including conjugated small molecules and polymers—combine the semiconducting properties traditionally associated with inorganic materials with the advantages of soft materials, such as low-temperature processability, scalability over large areas, and relatively low-cost fabrication. These materials have diverse optoelectronic applications, ranging from displays and lighting to flexible thin-film electronics, solar energy conversion, and biosensing. Her group investigates fundamental scientific questions related to the use of these materials in novel optoelectronic devices such as solar cells, photoconversion sensors, synaptic transistors, biosensors, and displays. Her research also includes the development of advanced nanometrology techniques tailored for these materials. This involves non-invasive structural analysis (e.g., steady-state and transient vibrational spectroscopy) and energetics studies (e.g., Kelvin probe, photoemission, and surface photovoltage spectroscopy). These experimental approaches are complemented by molecular density functional theory (DFT) simulations to gain a deeper understanding of the molecular origins and structural dynamics that influence device functionality and performance. Professor Kim works closely with several industrial partners, including Samsung Electronics (Korea), Oninn (Brazil), and the National Physical Laboratory (UK).
Examples of current research projects:
- Molecular Semiconductors for Sustainable Clean Energy Generation
- Probing and Manipulating Polarons in Molecular Semiconductors
- Mixed Electronic-Ionic Materials Towards Low-Powered Sustainable Healthcare Applications
- Energetic and Kinetic Analysis of Electronic Materials for Solar Driven Photoconversion
- Interface Engineering for High Performance Energy Storage Applications
More details of this research and her research team can be found on her group's website, currently found at The Nanoanalysis Group (http://www.imperial.ac.uk/nanoanalysis-group).
